Living Vicariously Through Facebook

You’ve probably heard of the movie “Romancing The Stone”, no doubt. Well, this is about Romancing The Facebook.

When I open Facebook each morning (as the day allows, of course), I peruse through so many different types of posts, from cute viral animal videos and photos to political statements, to news events, to what people are eating and where, to who is hanging out with who and what they are doing … and so forth and so on. It’s my daily dose of everything in the world of social interaction via the Internet. It’s my world inside Facebook.

I mostly like the way that I feel connected with my friends and family when I don’t get a chance for in-person meetings. I mean, how would I know that my daughter had this romantic date night at this fabulous place if she didn’t post a photo of it on Facebook? I wouldn’t.

It’s not as if she calls me to let me know about all her events, as that just doesn’t happen in my real life. And how would I know that one of my colleagues won a special film award? Or, that a distant friend traveled to places in Europe and shared photos of her adventures? Or, that a fellow filmmaker just started production on a new film, and another fellow writer just published a new book?

And then there’s all those cute animal videos and people doing amazing things. You won’t find this kind of entertainment in mainstream media, that’s for sure.

I don’t want to forget to mention that I learn a lot, too. Things about food, about snow storms on the East coast, about new technology, and other endless topics that fill my mind with new awareness.

The other side is that I have an avenue to share bits of my life, too. For the more personal-type posts, I keep those among friends but, for things I want to broadcast more broadly, I make public. This way, I can still keep some skeletons in my closet (hehehe).

So, in feeling grateful for something today, I am grateful for Facebook. I’m thankful for its capacity to feed me news of my friends and family, and I’m thankful for its method of keeping me connected to the world when I can’t get out in the world on a daily basis. When it comes to Facebook, I feel like I can live vicariously through others when my own life keeps me away from them.